


Reversal

by destroyold



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, M/M, Minor Character Death, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-22 18:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12488500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destroyold/pseuds/destroyold
Summary: This time, it was Haru gaping at him.





	1. Homeless

The clock ticked, and my heart clicked. Although my breath did not stop, my legs did. I stood in front of the beach, a few feet away from the stairs. Iwatobi showed itself to be as bright of a place as ever.

I had spent a long time carrying fragments of him. At first, losing trace of him was hard, but it only was an instance in which my memory could recover its strength. And so I flowed with it like never before.

Rei, Nagisa, and Gou have been there to make my brain do some exercise. My parents and siblings have contributed along the way, but only subtly. As time goes by, everyone seems to have suffered from a major problem: his fading away from the collective mind at my former place. Though hard to occur, small-town people like them happened to forget the superstar. Sometimes they ask for him, but they have never inquired more than what they were limited to. They never knew what to question about his life anyway. With time, I picked that up, and it worked for me as well.

He flew away. Freely.

As usual, the ocean greeted me with the best of views and calmest of waters. If it hadn’t been for my immense fear towards the liveliness of the sea, my visits would imply a closer and prolonged approach. Despite being on the verge of drowning once, I was brought to the realization that respecting the sea involved being at peace with it. This felt like one of the days in which I would have gone closer if I had been able to. Practice makes perfect.

As part of the Tachibanas, my integrity fully depended on social commitment. Having had teacher parents and siblings to deal with from a very early time, my soul got accustomed to what it meant to assist others. During my high school years, I got to learn what my future could be like if I followed that instinct, and it turned out to be more fascinating than expected. The first glimpse at following my parents’ way of living was when Nagisa proclaimed me team captain. It never really made sense until we had to face the toughest moments together. Apparently, Nagisa and Rei always had a hard time keeping things stable in times of crisis, and the strongest swimmer of our group spent half the time pushing himself to achieve social detachment. I played the role of the fixer, the connector. Later, in my last year, signing up for a university in Tokyo, I concreted my wish. Studying to become a teacher would be my first step towards a fulfilled life.

Fulfillment, however, never came. The best years of my life, all my efforts and joy, were taken away with a few looks and a few words. No rope has ever been tight and strong enough to bear with an unbearable heavy load.

“You could simply ask for help,” I heard behind my back as though the wind had decided to play tricks on me. I turned around, smiling wholeheartedly. Somehow, the irony of the situation filled me with temporary happiness. ”Don’t fight it.”

“Never thought to have you back,” I commented lightly, accidentally stepping on the cracks. A shaken look was what I received as immediate punishment. “…at Iwatobi.”

“Come on, let’s go. I am sure that taking the load off your shoulders for a day will do you good.”

I was now 32, and life had become calmer now. At the age of 23, I learned to let go. At the age of 26, I got an idea of how to take care of myself. At the age of 28, I had already reached an emotional balance for my own sake. At the age of 31, life could not seem more peaceful.

“So I completed my studies, Haru,” I began as we slowly went up the ancient stairs. For a place full of history and stories to tell, it did seem like a brand new type of area. I knew for sure where this feeling came from. Nostalgia had not worked on me for long and, just like the fragile consistency of the collective mind at home, I was fed from the ignorance that our ordinary lives absorbed and irradiated. “I got your place when I came back and started working right away. Your mom never expected you to come back, so we just made an agreement for my attempt at getting a real, adult life. It’s been years now, but the feel I get at home sometimes ruins the mood, you know? I do have to admit that your absence fills the rooms of that house.”

Silence embraced me back again. Despite how long it had been since our last interaction, I never lost the training of improvised mindreading. It was something I had got used to after all.

Haruka had stopped walking when I noticed the message I had just delivered. Having no home where to get to sure changed things. _Homeless is all I am_.

“So you have a family already?” He said after a deep breath. Haruka had never been one to negotiate in a conversation.

“I just invited Haru in,” I laughed it off, moving my head for him to be at my level. “Haru as in, uh…”

“Haru.”

“A cat.”

Waves of relief came over him as his eyes recovered their usual shine. He kept walking as he smiled. I knew that would be the closer I would currently get to seeing him laugh at my lack of originality.

“Isn’t there way too much space for a person and a cat?” He dared asking as we walked in front of my family house. He stopped for a bit so as to signal my parents’ house. Probably, he wanted to see them again, but my family’s availability got extremely hard to deal with after Haruka’s departure. I shook my head, moving my hand for him to hurry. Haruka seemed appalled by the unwelcoming sight.

“There is, but we manage. The guys come on the weekends.”

“The _guys_?”

“Nagisa and Rei, I mean,” I was surprised by my explanation. I had never needed to do so. The impression that those words left in my tongue suddenly became of pure displacement. Haruka was taking me back somehow, as he always did back then. “They– they come on the weekends.”

“The guys.” Haruka sighed in return and, for a second, I could not distinguish his anger from his disappointment towards my change. What felt most surprising, though, was the fact that Haruka had never been someone to focus on details so much, yet there he was.

After having stepped in front of the house, I turned around at him. Nanase Haruka, with his blue eyes and his tamable unwavering emotions, stood there, gaping at me as I had not seen him in years. Although maintaining eye contact was a thing in our friendship years, the lack of presence from his part and lack of interest from mine drove us to behaving like complete opposites.

This time, it was him gaping. This time, it was me taming what came through my mind. This time, roles were reversed.


	2. Oil and Water

In Haruka’s shimmering eyes, there lay an incontrollable uncertainty. As trivial as it might have been, it was painful to look into each other’s eyes after so long under these circumstances. Staring was the most natural thing any human could do, but it felt as if my heart had repeatedly been stabbed. Neither Haruka nor I knew what was truly going on.

“So when did you move back from Tokyo?” He asked after some time spent in silence. The evening’s color gradient had already faded into dark blue, and stars started to show up in the sky. It was too late for questions that required development.

“Where are you planning to stay?” I cut him off.

“Well, I actually don’t know,” he whispered blankly, “Mother had not told me about this, really.”

In a corner of my heart, I felt the need to let him stay under my protection. Protecting is what I was good at, but the other corners of it did not allow me to offer help. As emotional as I could still be, I had trained myself to become more rational over time. This was the proof to say that it was not in vain.

Haruka bent over and placed my bags on the floor between us. As incredible as it could be, he apparently had an answer to his silent pleading. After standing right up, he nodded with a serious face. He knew me well. The distance between us had no boundaries, no limits. You could have measured it back then, but not now.

“I cannot let you in,” I stated with a matter-of-fact tone of voice, “but I can offer you to make a call and get you some place where you can stay.”

I lifted my belongings and left them next to the house’s entrance. In my head, it felt like I was contradicting myself but, thing is, I was not. As much as I wanted him back in my life, as much as I felt alone inside, I could not let him in. It was a wish, though, for him to be able to take care of himself. When I turned around, I spotted Haruka sitting on the stairs with a hand cupping his cheek, his elbow lazily resting on his knee. With such a saddening sight in front of me, I walked towards him, watching every step I made.

“So, Haru, how have you been?” I would’ve shut myself up with such a plain, useless way of engaging in spoken interaction. “I mean, how’s Aussie?”

Haruka smiled, giving me a look. The curve on his lips, nevertheless, was not genuine. _Visual bullshit_ is what Asahi would have called it. Just like me, he did not know how to be a fake. The only difference was that I did not try as hard anymore.

“What?”

“You’ve really changed.” He assured me, opening his eyes more than usual. His stare was blank, unmoved. For some reason, I had become some sort of letdown.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Rei. I was sure he would have no problems at all with having his _senpai_ over for some time. He had had me over, too, and never showed any kind of disagreement with such decision. All I knew was I could not stay beside him for long; I would just be taken back and back again if I was to remain by his side any minute more.

“Hi, Rei,” I said hurriedly once my friend finally decided to pick up the call. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“What is it, Makoto-senpai?” Rei answered expectantly. “It is so late I cannot imagine what you are contacting me for.”

“Haruka is back,” I expressed with feigned delight. The man beside me stared at me in disbelief, but I only dared looking back from the corner of my eye. Nanase’s fingers were twitching out of distress.

“Haruka?” Rei asked loudly, making Haruka get closer to the phone. His voice pitch expressed confusion. “When did you lose him and why didn’t you inform us about it?!”

“Shit, no, I mean…” I stopped before giving the revealing answer. Haruka and I looked at each other, and I could sense panic in his eyes. I could smell discomfort. “I–I meant Ha–“

“Hello, Rei,” Haruka suddenly interrupted. I was not sure what was that invaded his voice, but I received his message very clearly when he got violently closer with cold, opaque eyes. I was not his friend anymore but one of the other swimmers from the other tracks whom he did not know. I was a nobody but, at the same time, I was useful enough for a purpose. Eat or be eaten.

“Haruka-senpai?!”

“Rei, I wanted to know if you could let me stay for the night,” Haruka mentioned succinctly.

As both of us were listening to him now, his reply left us speechless. No words came out, no laughter, nothing of substance but a simple sigh was released by Rei in the middle of our phone call. I despised him for a second. After all, whatever he says means nothing compared to his facial expressions or voice fluctuations. Those, he could never disguise.

In response to that, our bodies were stiff. None of us knew the answer to Haruka’s impolite request, and we both knew that there would not be a second chance as well. Calling Nagisa was out of the question. In an attempt to leave hostility aside, I smiled apologetically, but no signs of change came from his part. Haruka was clearly not counting on me for tonight.

“Sure. No problem.”

After Rei’s segmented, tell-tale answer, I barely managed to thank him for his help as neutrally as I could. Then, we waited in silence for him to arrive and take Haruka away. Any of the previous demonstrations of silence had never been as meaningful as this one. I was sure we both were aware of the fact that our disconnection transcended ourselves. Maybe, it had been my fault to involve everyone in my perspective of our relationship.

When Rei arrived, he greeted us with a serious look, but one could easily perceive his fondness from afar. Although he already was a grownup, his wishes seemed to remain intact. In his heart and head, Rei had longed for the day when we would all meet again. Meetings with Nagisa and Gou were not enough for him, and he always was rude enough to ask me about Haruka’s return. For some reason, I always thought they put the blame of his departure on me.

“You’ve finally dropped the –chan, eh?”

Before leaving with Rei, Haruka turned around for the last time. In his face, a straight line decorated his lips. He was no one to pretend around me anymore. That night, the both of us understood.

His eyes, though, made me feel as though I had been a repellent element polluting his vision.

“Makoto,” he finally said, and his saying my name made me feel sick almost instantly. Until then, Haruka had decided not to call me for who I am. He, who never intended to pay attention to details, engaged me in the most painful of word games.

This time, it was him doing all the talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose this is what you call a fic belonging to the angst genre. I am so adding tags now.


	3. Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makoto's change of heart

The next morning, the sound of the bedroom door opening woke me up. The conditions in which I had gone to bed the night before were not the most appropriate, so it was a scare when I noticed someone intruding from beneath the blankets.

“Makoto,” a soft voice sounded by the end of my bed now, “Makoto, wake up, sweetheart.”

“Mom?”

I was confused. My parents and I did not communicate as often these days. In fact, I did not even get in touch with my siblings as I used to anymore. My decision to develop my skills at one of the most prestigious universities in Tokyo triggered my dad’s concern about Ren and Ran’s future. As they agreed with him, both decided to expand their possibilities there as well, so they left at the beginning of their junior year. So suddenly, I had my brother and sister sent away with the oldest of my mom’s sisters. Not having them around distorted reality even more as I had recently moved back from the big city. Losing Haruka had left some scars on me, but their absence just made it even more difficult for me to adjust to Iwatobi again.

After their departure, mother and father finally had time for each other. They devoted themselves to repair their relationship as time and three children had worn their bond out. They seemed extremely happy with that renewal stage of theirs, so I just kept myself distant and visited them much less than before. It, however, never became a problem with mom, but some strange feeling appeared in one of my meetings with them. Dad could not bring himself to be his usual self around me, and he spoke with me coolly. I knew I had done nothing wrong, but the nagging feeling of being a bother made me refrain from going home several times.

“I have something to tell you, dear,” she whispered uncomfortably, so I sat up. She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on me.

An unfilled pause. Complete silence.

“Haru-chan is back in town.”

It took me some time to react to what she uttered accordingly. I tried my best to pretend she was breaking the news to me just then, but the question in my mind was much stronger than my attempt at putting on a show. How did _she_ know?

“What did you say, mom?”

“He’s back. What will you do?” I was taken aback by her sudden interest in the situation. I could not answer, though, as I myself had been thinking about it since I first heard his voice.

“Mom, I--“ It was really hard to have that kind of conversation with her. As much as I always had a close relationship with her, it was not something I could easily comment on. “How do you know? There are a million Haru-looking guys around, believe me!” I faked a laugh, and her eyes went opaque.

She sighed afterwards. For some reason, every time someone talked with me about Haruka, they ended up sighing loudly.

“Rei-chan and Haru-chan paid me a visit last night, Makoto.” She started explaining as I felt my hands shake. “I thought you would not be prepared to see him, so I did not call you. I am sorry.”

My mouth went dry at the thought of Haruka interacting with her, of him insisting on visiting my family. I couldn’t help but wonder what he intended to do at my parents’ place. What was most stressful, though, was the realization that I had lost track of his intentions and emotions. We were not in sync anymore.

“Is he doing alright?” I finally asked. After all, I never got a reply from his part. The whole scene from the night before could have been simplified if he had just answered. Of course, things with Haru were never easy.

“It looks like he is. He told me he was looking for you and left his new number,” she said as she passed me a small slip of paper with his handwriting on it.

“Thanks, mom,” I smiled, “I will make sure to call him.”

“Please, tell me how things go after.”

It remained a mystery for me to know why exactly mother was so worried about us. Still, I assured her I would let her know. With that promise, she calmly left for the door after giving me a comforting embrace.

There in bed, I sat with a head full of doubts. I could not bring myself to think of an answer to Haruka’s behavior. I finished unfolding Haruka’s paper and stared at it in disbelief, puzzled.

“Yes, hello?” I caught myself saying through the phone a minute later. “Nagisa, please, I need your help.”

“Mako-chan, it’s so early,” he whined after yawning. I could have sworn he pouted just then, “what is it?”

“Don’t play pretend on me,” I warned him, “you know why I’m calling you. I suppose Rei told you already,” I said as I put my head on my left hand, feeling completely defeated by Nagisa’s mood. Sometimes, I wished I could have taken the news with such ease. Some walls did not allow me to, unfortunately.

“I didn’t think you would be so moved after Haru-chan’s visit, Mako-chan!” He laughed in return and yelled my name with sheer joy. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that he planned all the homecoming situation. “What are you planning to do?” He asked me. “Isn’t it time for a group meeting? It’s been so long, Makoto.”

“I’ll think about it, Nagisa,” I flinched at the sound of my name. I was brought back to Haruka’s thin lips pronouncing it as his eyes searched for my lost stare. “I can’t promise anything, though.”

With that, I hung up. Silence filled the room, and I felt helpless. _I never ran away from anything_ , Haru’s comeback left me wondering, _until now_.

Two phone calls a day keep the doctor away.

“Hello?”

“Haruka,” I felt my voice falter as I heard an almost inaudible gasp coming from him, “I believe we need to talk.”

As much as I had tried to fight it, the idea of recovering our bond’s strength seemed more appealing than any of the negative thoughts invading me. Just like in the case of water, I needed to be at peace with Haruka if I wanted our relationship to be of full respect.

“I’ll be there at 8, Makoto,” he replied before hanging up, his voice tinted with a feeling that was hard for me to recognize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relationship repairments are really hard, aren't they?


	4. Discrepancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makoto's youth has expired

I had never seen him that broken, that desperate, that… impatient. Haruka always was the most fluent and composed person I’d encountered in life, but there was something he had never been. He was never rational. This time, his lack of rationality did wonders to his mood and the way he lingered around me. Predictably enough, he was trying to hold everything back, so I let a small laugh escape my lips when his attempts turned into failures. That destroyed him, but I did not notice until later. He became this mess every time he reached his limits. It was not the first time I had the chance to see him like that.

What worried me, though, was the fact that I found him at the stairs near my parents’ house at 7:50 in the evening. He was never early. When he heard my footsteps getting closer, I saw how he turned on his heels with a hopeful look in his eyes. I shrugged it off then.

“Uh, Haru,” I hesitated as I moved forward, “it’s not 8 yet.”

“I knew you would be here before 8,” he spoke slowly, and I could feel how he took in every little detail of me he could find. It was hard to understand since I was not doing the same thing. “You always are.”

The problem was that I had gone through this a couple times in Tokyo. We had had several fights with Haruka because of that. I thought he would not notice, but he did every time he caught me going out with other guys. He always analyzed my looks before I left home, so he knew exactly what I was planning to do and, most importantly, with whom I was carrying out any plans. He never said anything, but it was noticeable that something bothered him.

There, down the stairs, he was once again getting all the information he could out of my hairstyle and clothes. He, however, stared at me with disappointment. Haruka, after all, was not one of them, and it showed.

Once I reached him, he nodded at me to encourage me to keep walking downwards. The silence between us could not have been filled by any small talk even if I had wanted to. I accepted and embraced it since it could not be helped. As usual, it was him taking over me all over again. It was too strong. As we replaced rocks and ceramic with cracked, sandy ground, I stopped on my tracks to make sure of what he was doing. I could not read him anymore, so I dared asking.

“Haru, what are we doing now?”

His eyes lit up in amazement. Surely, he was expecting me to know everything he felt and thought. Maybe, he just thought I would follow him silently as I always did. Instead, he got words, and those were much more difficult than my usual behavior sometimes.

“I just wanted to be with you,” he declared fearfully as he stood firmly beside me. He was stiff and completely tensed. He looked like a cat, always alert, waiting for the first punch to come. His blood had flushed to his cheeks, and the wind moved his hair with permanent rhythm. Eighteen-year-old Tachibana Makoto would have killed for this sight. Being twelve years older just made a significant difference, but I wished for it to have happened sooner still.

“Haru, I…”

_Haruka, I have always wanted you to say that. Haruka, your eyes are shining brightly tonight. Haruka, my heart hurts just from looking at you. Haruka, my head is spinning. Haru, my time is running out._ Haru-chan _, I have changed._

I swore to myself, for the first time, that all the words I repeated in my head for twelve years came to me as a revelation. The spell had worked on me, and the change could be clearly felt. All doubts had dissipated as my eyes lay on Haruka’s red face.

“What is that supposed to mean, Haru?” I asked as I sat on the border between the pavement and the beach. I patted the space next to me for him to come, but he remained in the same place, staring down at me as he had done a few times before.

He hummed with a lost look in return.

“Haruka, you have a good life in Australia,” I elaborated with a calm tone of voice. Not having Haruka around for long made me wonder how different it was to explain things to him in relation to my youngest students. Although he was a grownup, there were comprehension aspects in him that remained to be perfected, “so why would you come now?”

He sighed again. As expected, I would not be getting many answers out of him tonight. “I just wanted to be with you.” He replied automatically this time, putting his hands down his pockets as a defensive move.

“You mean all of us.”

“You.”

_Haruka, you can’t just waltz in and out of my life whenever you want._

“Well, you are always welcome in Iwatobi,” I smiled for him as I felt pain invade my chest. It had become natural, so I knew I would be able to control it. “Miss Amakata misses you lots, and Rei and Nagisa are always asking me about you… not to mention Goro.”

“Don’t do that.” He stated bluntly, looking sick.

“Do what?”

“Do not smile at me, Makoto,” he breathed as he kneeled beside me. I saw his body fall as the breeze moved his jacket. Then, I felt a rush of excitement come over me. “Do not smile if it does not come from your heart.”

The words felt like knives, slowly getting deeper and deeper into my skin. The old, unwanted, and hidden Makoto was no longer protected by the shield of time. The strong feelings that moved my heart woke him up, and the twelve-year difference between us was dissolved as though its powder had been thrown in the waters of eternity. Tachibana Makoto, 18, was now sitting next to his long awaited partner. Shamefully, my pores suddenly expelled youth as my breath hitched.

“Haru, it’s been long”, I stuttered, my voice breaking down as I stared into his eyes. I knew that would be the last time for me to say it. I never wanted it to go that way.

I hated myself for long. At first, it felt as natural as breathing, but it was not until my parents noticed that the feeling of guilt grew in me. If I had been able to hold it back or erase it from my mind, I would have simply done it without questioning myself. Sadly, my love for Haru had been kept in the depths of me for as long as I could remember. When I turned fourteen, my father approached me to ask when I would bring Haruka over officially. My mother then insisted with awkward, poorly disguised interviews every time he visited us, and my siblings never failed to disappoint them. Everyone in my family had wanted to check on me, to see how I did, to get an answer to a never-ending question. After graduating and moving to Tokyo, my parents already knew the truth and supported me for the better. When they realized I dated other people, though, discomfort filled them, and it got stronger every time they surprised me with unexpected visits or calls. I always was with someone new, and none of those somebodies did justice to Haru in any sense. Even I knew that, and in their faces the most repetitive question appeared when things never worked out the way they wanted.

_How is he anything like Haru?_

I took Haruka’s hands with mine and covered them with instant heat. I had held hands with him many times in my life, but it was only then that actions turned into meaning.

“Makoto,” he called my attention calmly, “it’s meaningless without you.”

My eighteen-year-old self would have run away with Haruka, holding his hand and kissing him in hideouts. He would have triumphantly walked beside him down the streets and would have probably brought his Haru for dinner with the rest of the family. He would have made it official in front of Rei and Nagisa, who always waited patiently as their relationship developed.

Twelve years had passed, and the weight of each day fell on my shoulders once more, shaking the fairytale off.

“Haruka,” I whispered, “I just wish you had said something earlier.”

Haruka could hear my heart breaking, and his features revealed an expression of shock as he stared at me for the last time that evening. He understood that time had fixed me already.

It was too late for my wishes to unleash. It already was meaningful without me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank you for the support. Writing about these two has not been an easy task since writing fiction and research papers are very different ways of developing the skill. I hope it is good enough for you!
> 
> p.s. I am planning to involve someone new by next week. Cheers!

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress. I've wanted to write something like this for so long! I wish I can keep up a good job.


End file.
